


brotherhood

by Lee_Mix



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Facial Shaving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 10:24:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5453264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lee_Mix/pseuds/Lee_Mix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Nino teaches Adrien about more than just shaving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	brotherhood

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this isn't a straight-out Nino/Adrien story, more of a BROTP fic. But there is a little ship tease if you squint. Hope you enjoy!

“Dude,  _what_ happened in here?”

The private on-suite bathroom was an utter  _mess._ From the bloodied tissues and towels sticking to the sides of the sink, to the humidity clinging to his skin the moment he walked in, Nino could have sworn he had walked into a slaughter in a sauna. Nino hadn’t often gotten the opportunity to visit the private quarters of his best friend, especially under the hawkeyes of Gabriel Agreste, but he knew that it was often kept  _spotless._

Adrien–who had been leaning over the counter with a confused expression on his face–yelped in surprise, and dropped the razor into the midst of the bloodied mess of the sink. He turned his head, guiltily, and shrunk his head into his shoulders. 

It was only  _then_ Nino noticed all the tiny marks on his friend’s pale chin. “H…How did you get in?”

Nino kicked his skateboard up with his foot and caught it with his hand. “Your Pa’s secretary let me come on in. Guess she felt guilty about shutting me out last time.”

“Natalie? Of course she did…” Adrien shook his head and groaned. “I said I’d be out today, didn’t I?”

“Mari’s parents offered to lend us the corner table for the group project.” 

Adrien sunk to the ground. “I  _knew_ I was forgetting something.”

Taking pity, Nino abandoned his skateboard and crouched to the ground. For a moment, he looked around at the room, at the bloodied tissues and bleeding cuts on his chin, and sighed. “Dude, what on Earth were you trying to  _do?”_

Adrien’s cheeks grew hot. “…I had a shoot today?” Nino’s brow simply rose a fraction, and Adrien groaned. He  _knew_ he couldn’t hide anything from Nino, and Nino was well aware of that. “I… well. Facial hair was more noticeable than usual, so Père told me to have my face “cleaned up” before the shoot today.”

Nino sighed. “And you don’t know how to shave. You have been looking a bit like Masha’s lost bear.”

“ _Not_ funny, Nino.”

“Sorry. But…” A thought came to his head. “Didn’t he teach you?” 

“He expected that I’d know.”

“Did he  _ask?_ ”

Adrien was silent. That all but confirmed Nino’s suspicions. 

“Right.” Adrien’s eyes flew open when Nino rose to his feet and held out a hand. “Come on, dude. I’m showing you how to get that mug, as your Pa so gracefullyput it, cleaned up.”

Adrien eyed his friend suspiciously. “You’re not going to try and…?”

He frowned. “Dude, I said I’d  _show_ you. You’re fifteen years old, and I’m not babysittingyou.”

That earned him a chuckle, and soon the two teenagers were stood in front of the large mirror. Nino had disposed of the bloodied towels and tissues and had then opened the window, before filling the sink with warm water and cleaning off the back of the razor for him.

“Right, first of all. Tell me how  _you_ did it.”

Adrien flushed. “Isn’t it simple? I put the blade to the skin, and–”

“ _Wrong._ ” He held up a finger. “Dude, that will literally cause your skin to burn. What you  _need,_ is aftershave and shaving cream. You got any of that?”

Baffled, it took Adrien a few moments to respond. “Uh, I get sent things like that all the time. There should be some in the cupboard.”

Nino smirked as he went over. “And you didn’t think to use it? Or to search up what it meant?”

Adrien shrugged, and the teasing ebbed away. “Père checks my internet history all the time. Anything I do search up, he’d bring up later.”

 _And if there’s one thing you don’t want to do, it disappoints your Pa._ Nino thought, as he grabbed the shaving cream.  _Damn, what has he **done**  to you, dude?_

“Right. Well.” A sharp clear of the throat blew any further teasing out of the water. “First, you want to cover your face in the shaving cream.”

Adrien squirted some onto his hand. “Is this enough?”

“Use as much as you want, dude. Trust me, I looked like a damn  _cupcake_ when I first did it.”

Watching Adrien plaster on the shaving cream onto his face was quite the spectacle. He was hesitant in his movements at first, constantly glancing over at him before he threw all of that to the wind and  _coated_ his chin and cheeks in the stuff. He looked like someone had dunked his head into a cotton-candy machine and destiny had been kind enough to leave his eyes untouched. 

It was like watching a little kid, really. 

(Something in his heart lurched at that; at how much Adrien had been pulled into the adult world, and was still so  _kid-like,_ it was terrifying he hadn’t gone mad.

Sometimes, Nino really  _did_ curse all adults.)

“What now?” 

A small laugh from his lips barely concealed from the image of his friend, the esteemed  _Adrien Agreste,_ looking like a cupcake, Nino grabbed one of the spare razors. 

“Don’t  _laugh,_ Nino.”

“Not doing anything of the sort, dude. Now,” he tilted his head back. “Make sure to glide the blade in the direction the hair grows, and tilt it at an angle. Watch out for those cuts, though. Like this.”

Nino held the blade just shy of touching his own chin, moving it just enough so Adrien could log in the demonstration.

“It’s really that simple?”

Nino grinned. “Yeah. Pretty boring, right? They build it up as this thing that makes us become  _men,_ but girls are doing all this before we even pick up a blade!”

Adrien paused. “Did… someone show you how to do this?”

“Sort of.” Nino mused. “It was a mix of my Ma puzzling through it–she doesn’t actually shave all that often–and Alya giving me pointers.”

“ _Alya?”_

“What can I say? Girl’s a living encyclopedia.”

He glanced over at Nino for a moment, before shrugging and looking at his movements in the mirror. He did as he was instructed, gliding the blade (though his hand was trembling), and although he was leaving some considerable gaps between the blade and his skin, but for the most part, he was managing.

“Ouch–!” Adrien dropped the blade and hissed as he covered a small, bleeding cut with his thumb.

“Missed that one?” Nino had a quick look over. “Dude, I don’t think you’re going to be going to that shoot today. Any make-up is going to sting like  _mad._ ”

Adrien paled. “B-But…”

“Look, dude.” Nino put a hand on his shoulder. “You do  _everything_ your Pa says. I think he can let one photo shoot go for the basis of schoolwork. Right?”

“Maybe he would for the group project…” Adrien bit his lip. “He did say grades were important to keep up.”

The blood that seeped down his friend’s cheek trickled onto Nino’s thumb, and it was haunting to think Adrien was more afraid of his father’s  _disapproval_ than the cut on his face. 

“Alright, dude, give me the razor.”

Adrien blinked. “What?”

Without warning, he plucked the item from Adrien’s grasp. “I said I wouldn’t do this for you, but you’re hopeless without me. Lean your head back, I’ll get around those cuts for you.”

That familiar flush came flooding back into Adrien’s face, turning his skin a reddish-purple (he looked like an eggplant), but complied as Nino put one hand under his chin to steady him, and the other working around the cuts like a paintbrush around the outlines. He made sure not to come into contact with the tiny cuts, repeating the same movements he had drawn on his own skin hundreds of times.

Oddly, it felt like something familiar, yet alien. Something that had been told to him in stories…

_…It’s the sorts of things that brothers do, I guess._

And he would have been  _honoured_ to be related to Adrien, in any way. Gabriel Agreste didn’t know what he was missing out on.

“There we go.”

He dunked the razor into the water, cleaning off the blade. 

Adrien went over in the mirror, and after some brief instruction, carefully doused his chin in the aftershave (trying to avoid the stinging pain with pursed lips–he almost looked like some sort of  _cat_ ). After that was done, he trailed a finger up and down the smooth skin, admiring the handiwork. 

Nino merely leant against the wall and grinned. “Like I said, dude, you’d be lost without me.”

Adrien smiled back over at him. “Yeah. I really _, really_  would.” He looked down, away from his gaze. “…Bro.”

The sincerity dripping from his voice left Nino shocked, not even responding as Adrien walked right past him toward the stairs.

“Come on, Nino! The girls are probably waiting for us! Don’t tell me you’d rather sit and speak with my father for hours?”

Nino shook his head and grabbed his board. “Coming,  _sir!”_

_“Nino! I told you not to call me that!”  
_

Like he said.

He would have been  _honoured_ to be related to Adrien.

Damn what anyone else said.


End file.
